


A Haunted Tour

by Suneater (Gryn)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Because it's Spoopy season, F/M, and because I felt like it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 02:49:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16255145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryn/pseuds/Suneater
Summary: Jason thinks he's going to a haunted historical tour, turns out he's really there to help Piper scare her friend.





	A Haunted Tour

**Author's Note:**

> Because it's October and jasiper needs more Halloween content.

“Leo I'm going to fucking kill you.” The voice comes from just ahead, ringing out in the otherwise quiet darkness of the house.  
Jason hesitates a moment before stepping down the hallway, heading directly towards the voice.  
He can hear her muttered curses coming from around a corner, sharp and quick and incredibly creative. Jason stops just shy of the doorway and clears his throat.  
“Uh, hello?” Jason call out, fists bunching and releasing at his sides.  
“Hello?” the girl responds, voice almost shaking. “Are you in on this with Leo?”  
“I have no idea who Leo is,” Jason responds, weighing the risk of taking a step forward and going for it anyways.  
He peers around the corner and finds her standing in the middle of the room, the thin light of the shitty flashlight the guides had given to all of them barely making her outline visible.  
“You okay?” he asks, glancing around the room, peering to see any motion in the utter darkness.  
“Yeah,” she answers quickly. “Who are you?” she follows up with even faster.  
“I’m, uh, Jason.”  
“You sure about that?”  
He can’t see much but he catches the shift in her posture, the way she leans back, shoulders squaring.  
“Yeah, I’m sure. Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you or anything I just heard you yelling and… we’ll there’s only one direction to go through this place so…” Jason glances around the room again, muscles tensing at the idea of just staring at this stranger in the dark, even if she can’t see him doing it.  
“Right. Yeah.” She steps aside, swinging the flashlight to beam directly at him.  
The AA batteries don’t give it enough power to do any harm, but as it’s the only light in the room other than his own flashlight it still makes him squint.  
“You sure you don’t know Leo?”  
“No. Why?” he asks curtly, lifting his hand to shield his eyes.  
“Just… seems like you’re exactly the kind of guy he’d hire.”  
“Uh, what does that mean?”  
“Nothing,” she says quickly. “So, you were headed through?” She drops the flashlight from his face but keeps it pointed at his chest.  
“Yeah, thanks.” Jason starts to cross the room, the girl's flashlight trained on him the whole time. He makes it just past her when the nagging pull at the back of his neck stops him. “Are you okay?” he asks, turning towards her and receiving a flashlight beam to the face.  
“Why do you ask?”  
“Because you're standing in the middle of a historical haunted house threatening to kill someone,” Jason answers, blinking in the light. “And because you're pointing that thing at me like it's a weapon,” he points at her flashlight, hoping that she can see better than he can.  
There's a long moment when he's left still standing there, squinting into the light. Then the flashlight falls away from his face, the girl letting out a sigh.  
“My friend, who's a dick, ditched me here. Probably so that he could run ahead and scare me,” the words come tumbling out in a single breath. “And then you show up alone, out of nowhere, and it feels like Leo hired you to scare me.”  
“That's an elaborate plan,” Jason points out.  
“Leo's a dick, but he's smart. A smart dick.” She points the flashlight at the exit. “So sorry if I’m not the most trusting, but you can go first.”  
“So you’re just going to let me go ahead of you and wait until after I leave?” Jason shifts his weight from one foot to the other, glancing between the illuminated exit and the flashlight she’s holding. “Wouldn’t that give me a chance to hide somewhere and scare you later?”  
The flashlight snaps back to him, the light once again blinding him.  
“You’re taking a strange interest in what happening to a stranger you just met while walking alone through a haunted house,” she challenges.  
“I’m just trying to help,” he holds out his hands, palms towards her. “If it was me, I’d want to at least keep the person I think has been paid to scare me in my line of sight.”  
“I guess that’s not a bad idea,” she mutters, along with something Jason thinks is along the lines of him not being bad to look at, but he tells himself he heard wrong while forcing back a blush.  
“Alright, but you’re still going first.” She waves her flashlight at the exit, prompting him along with the moving spotlight.  
“Uh, do you think I could have a minute to check out the room?” he shifts his weight again, eyes flicking around the dark room.  
“Why? All that’s in here is stuff about the history of the building.”  
Jason chews on his lip for a moment, readying himself to agree to moving along and having to find out this part of the tour later.  
“Wait, are you actually here for the history?”  
“Mostly, yeah. Well, I guess entirely.”  
She laughs, loud and drawn out and easy.  
“So you came to a haunted history self-guided tour, for the self guided tour?” She laughs again and Jason can’t seem to mind it’s at him.  
“This is the only time of year the tour is avaialable,” he says quietly.  
“Okay Jason the history nerd, we’ll finish the tour together.”  
“It’s history buff, and thanks I guess?”  
“History buff, that’s well deserved.” Jason can’t ignore the comment and feels his face warm. “We’ll, go ahead so we can get the hell out of here.”  
Jason turns his light on the room, finding one of the informational plaques and heading for it. His flashlight focuses on the sign, giving him just enough illumination to read. He does his best to zero in on reading, on getting as much information as quickly as possible, but the nagging weight and occasional flashes of her flashlight beam pull him to other thoughts.  
Who the hell is she? What’s her name? What are they going to do at the end of the tour, just say goodbye and walk away?  
The layers of strangeness and questions he wants to ask build up until they’re suffocatingly heavy, burying him alive.  
She starts to wonder the room, eventually coming to a stop next to him and pointing her own flashlight at the diagram of this block of the city a hundred years ago.  
“So, uh, you never gave me your name,” he forces out, very aware of the heat that radiates off of her.  
“Piper,”she says easily. “Surprised Leo didn’t tell you that when he hired you.”  
Jason waits a moment, letting a pause start to build before he decides to lean into this.  
“Oh he did, but if I’d known your name without you telling me you’d be suspicious.”  
Her flashlight whips to his face again and he laughs, not bothering to shield himself from the light.  
“You’re enjoying this. My horrible suffering at the hands of my best friend, and you’re laughing it up,” there’s no bite or anger to Piper’s words.  
“Can I ask you a question, Piper?”  
“Sure,” she says slowly.  
“Is Leo getting you back for something you pulled on him?”  
The silence rings in the room, and Jason can almost feel the way Piper tenses up next to him.  
“Maybe,” she finally admits. “But it wasn’t nearly as bad as this!” She rushes through the sentence.  
“So I’m guessing you’re already working on your plan to get back at him?”  
“I’m… considering a few things,” she says with dash of laughter in her voice.  
“I figured.”  
Only now does Jason realize he’s turned towards her, his body moving without him realizing. He can’t tell exactly how close they are in the darkness but he’s very aware he’s a stranger and she’s stuck with him for the rest of this tour.  
He steps back quickly, flashlight searching for another plaque.  
“I think that section of the room covers the great fire,” Jason says quickly, stepping carefully to move around Piper.  
“Cool,” she responds, almost deflated.  
Jason skims through the next plaque, and the one after that, and the one after that. Then he stops really reading them, picking out a few words in each instead before moving on.  
“You don't have to rush,” she says, trailing behind him.  
“It's fine,” he says, face burning with heat now that he's been caught trying to rush through.  
“Seriously, the longer we keep Leo waiting the better. Hopefully it’ll be long enough he falls asleep. Or pees his pants,” she says all too happily.  
“You think he’d pee his pants just to stay hidden to scare you? In a self guided historical haunted house?” He drifts away from the plaque again, wondering close to where her voice drifts from.  
“He’s nothing if not dedicated to his pranks,” Piper says seriously.  
“You two have an interesting friendship,” Jason laughs.  
He stares into the space he hopes she’s standing in, wondering what this mystery girl looks like.  
“You have no idea,” Piper says, voice filled with mischief. “Well you done skimming the history stuff in here?”  
“I’m not-“ Jason start in on a defense but she cuts him off with a laugh, her hand reaching out in the darkness to fumble over his arm and pull him towards the exit.  
“C’mon, let’s get this over with.” She pulls him from the room and into the next, following him as he moves from plaque to plaque.  
She stands next to him as he reads, breath washing across his arm sometimes. The longer he stands at a display, doing his best to keep focused on the words the closer she seems to get, which does nothing to help his focus.  
It must take him a half hour to get through the room but Piper doesn’t complain, instead she seems to read along with him, making the occasional comment as they drift through the darkness.  
They close in on the last of the exhibit, a final room with a hallway that branches off of it to the exit. Leo has a few limited chances to try and scare her, and Jason has limited time to figure out what he’s going to do when they reach the exit.  
“Hey,” Piper whispers, “would you do me a huge favor?”  
“Uh, sure,” Jason rubs his palms against his legs.  
“Leo is going to scare me, he’s won this round, but he has no idea you’re here. So, I’m wondering if you’ll scare him,” she keeps her voice low, Jason having to lean in to hear clearly, taking in the smell of cinnamon on her breath.  
“Here? Now?”  
“Right after he scares me. He’s going to be all cocky and proud of himself and he’ll never expect it. I know this is asking a lot, but-“  
“I’m in,” Jason blurts, voice full of eagerness without any idea where it’s coming from.  
“Yeah?” her voice nearly vibrates.  
“Yeah,” he says with a nod, knowing full well she can’t see him in the darkness.  
“Hell yeah,” she mutters, a rustling and breeze punctuating the statement and Jason can only figure she just fist pumped. “Okay, I’ll go in first, wait until he jumps or whatever, then get him.”  
“Got it.” Jason nods again.  
Piper’s flashlight beam flashes away, pointing into the last room as she moves forward, slowly picking her way through the room. Jason switches his flashlight off, pressing himself against the doorway with some strange idea that it will help him stay quieter. He holds in his breath a second longer than necessary, lets it out even slower, then repeats. His muscles twitch and snap, ready to jump at anything.  
“Alright,” Piper calls out and Jason nearly jumps into the display case next to him. “I get it Leo, you’re gonna scare me. Come on, just get it over with.”  
The silence fills the room, drowning him in it. Leo doesn’t make a single noise to give away his position. Piper’s flashlight whips around the room again, but it pointedly misses the doorway where she left Jason.  
“Seriously, Leo. C’mon!” Her shoes squeak across the hardwood floor, flashlight helping her pick her way through the the displays.  
He loses her for a second behind something and Jason’s stomach drops. He’s moving before Leo appears, and when his scream comes it’s almost instantly followed by Piper’s.  
There’s genuine terror in it for a full second, then it’s gone and replaced with a string of curses that Jason can’t help but smile at. Her creativity more than makes up for her lack of coherency.  
There’s course laughter that must be Leo’s, lighting up his position in the dark. Piper’s flashlight flicks back and forth in a narrow arc, lighting up every display between them. Jason marvels at her smarts the second after she’s been terrified.  
“Oh man, oh man I got you so bad. So bad!” Leo’s voice is a bit higher than Jason expected.  
Jason smiles to himself, crouching low as if it will help him in his stealth.  
“Sooooo goooood,” Leo draws out the words, reveling in them as Jason closes the last few feet.  
Jason steps up directly behind Leo and growls, the noise rumbling through his chest in a snarl that makes even Jason blink.  
Leo’s scream is real this time, far louder, higher pitched, and shaking than Piper’s was. It last longer too. Before it ends Piper is cackling, the sound sending a buzz through him.  
“How you like that you jerk!” Piper’s cry of triumph rings through the entire building. “Suck it!”  
Leo’s scream has only just died and she is already rubbing it in, enjoying her victory all too much.  
“What the fu-“ Leo starts before a woman’s voice cuts him off.  
“What’s going on in here?” The lights turn on, throwing the world from blackness into blinding light.  
“Ahh!” Leo screams and Jason just manages to catch an image of both he and Piper reaching for their eyes before he has to squeeze his shut.  
“All three of you, out!” The woman shouts.  
It takes a moment before Jason can open his yes but when he does he finds a scowling middle aged woman pointing at the exit.  
The other two flash glances at one another as they exit, Piper grinning and Leo frowning. They make their way out, shoving each other once they’re past the scowling woman. Jason watches them leave, his feet sunk into the floor, words he can force out building in his throat and choking him.  
The scowling woman, an employee or volunteer of the exhibit, clears her throat. Jason looks at her, blinking as her scowl deepens. He has to stand there a second longer before he realizes that she’s waiting for him, that she had yelled ‘all three of you’ and that he has to go too.  
“Sorry,” he mutters, taking off after Leo and Piper.  
He half jogs down the hallway and past the gift shop, pushing open the exit and nearly running into a girl standing on the street.  
“Hey,” she says more than happily. “You get lost?”  
“No, I, uh- sorry.” Jason shakes his head, the voice all too familiar but his mind still processing the dark hair, brown eyes, and perfect smile standing in front of him in a battered Powerpuff Girls shirt and shorts.  
“You alright, there?” She notices his gaze and looks down at herself. “Something wrong with me?”  
“No! You look beautiful,” Jason blurts, his face immediately turning into a fireball.  
“Okay…” Piper side eyes him, turning away from him. “Well thanks for helping me,” she breaks into a smile.  
“Thanks for nothing!” Leo shouts from behind him, making Jason jump.  
“Oh get over it,” Piper shoots.  
“You got some hot guy to help you scare me, that’s such bull!” Leo whines as much as he shouts.  
“All’s fair in love and war,” Piper says with a shrug.  
Jason catches the hint of the blush that runs into her cheeks as she glances at him.  
“Screw both of you,” Leo mutters and walks off.  
“He’ll get over it,” Piper says with a wave. “Sorry about getting you kicked out,” Piper jerks her head towards the door he just stumbled out.  
“It’s fine,” he shrugs. “I’ll see it next year or something.”  
“I could make it up to you,” she offers, “get you dinner or something?”  
“Like- like a date?”  
Piper beams, Jason’s heart instantly racing.  
“Sure, like a date. How do tacos sound?”  
“Good, but don’t you want to go somewhere nice? I’m not complaining,” he adds quickly. “I just thought something more formal for our first date.”  
Piper grins at him. “Right,” she says with a laugh and holds out her hand, when Jason stares at it she laughs again. “Your phone,” she explains.  
Jason manages to dig it out of his pocket without dropping it and hands it over. Piper punches her number into it, hitting the call button before she hands it back.  
“Two things, just for the record by the way. I don’t need a fancy date and,” she glances up at him, “this would be our second date.”  
“Second date?” Jason blinks.  
“We went through a museum together, scared my friend, and got kicked out of said museum. Kind of sounds like a date to me,” she gives him a shy smile.  
“Yeah,” Jason says with a smile back, “guess it does.”  
“Well I had a great time,” Piper says, “and I look forward to our second date but I need to catch up with Leo.”  
Piper hesitates a second before she steps backwards and heads off after her friend. Jason watches as she jogs off, replaying everything in his head and listing out everything he could have done differently. Including him blurting out that she’s gorgeous and ending with the moment she informed him this was their first date and then he let her walk away without kissing her.  
“I’m and idiot,” he says to noone and wondering what he’ll manage to mess up on their second date.


End file.
